Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, used in the manufacture of silicon solar cells, is recognized as a potentially cost-effective, performance-enhancing technique that can provide simultaneous surface passivation and an effective anti-reflection coating. To gain the full benefit from improved emitter-surface passivation on cell performance, it is necessary to tailor the emitter doping profile so that the emitter is lightly doped between the gridlines, but heavily doped beneath them. This is especially true for screen-printed gridlines which require very heavy doping beneath the grid for acceptably low contact resistance. This selectively patterned emitter doping profile (selective emitter) has historically been obtained by using expensive photolithographic or screen-printed alignment techniques and multiple high-temperature diffusion steps.